SPCB Leadership

The Science Panel for the Congo Basin is led by three esteemed scientists from the region, that serves as inaugural Co-Chairs:

Special Envoy

Corneille Ewango

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Lydie-Stella Koutika

Researcher at the Centre de Recherche sur la Durabilité et la Productivité des Plantations Industriales (Republic of Congo)

  • Lydie-Stella Koutika is a soil scientist and Director for the Research Centre on Productivity and Sustainability of Industrial Plantations (CRDPI) at Pointe- Noire, Republic of the Congo. She is an expert in land degradation processes, and researches solutions for the region’s food insecurity, as well as effective mitigation and adaptation to climate change. Dr Koutika also studies forest biodiversity conservation.

Bonaventure Sonké

Professor at the University of Yaoundé (Cameroon)

Lee White

Honorary Professor at the University of Stirling

  • Bonaventure Sonké is a Professor and Head of the Department of Biology at the Higher Teachers’ Training College at the University of Yaoundé I, Cameroon. He is involved in project collaborations with many institutions: he is also a research associate of the Missouri Botanical Garden (USA), the University of Liège, and the Free University of Bruxelles in Belgium. His research primarily focuses on the biodiversity in African rainforests.

I am a joint British and Gabonese National. I was brought up in UK, Uganda and Sierra Leone and have lived most of my life in tropical Africa. In a 40-year career in Natural Resource Conservation and Management in Equatorial Africa I have worked in Gabon, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Rwanda. During this time I served for 15 years as country director in Gabon and for a time as Central Africa Director for the international conservation NGO, Wildlife Conservation Society, WCS; Directed Gabon’s National Parks Agency, ANPN, for 10 years; and served for over 4 years as the Water, Forests, Sea and Environment Minister in the Gabonese Government from June 2019 onwards.

During my time at WCS, ANPN and the Ministry I participated in the creation of 53 new protected areas, including Gabon’s network of 13 national parks in 2002 and its 20 marine protected areas in 2017. I raised and managed over half a billion US$ of donor funding for conservation and forest management; lead the process to register 187 million tons of REDD+ results with the UNFCCC and structured a REDD+ results-based payment worth up to $150 million with the Norwegian Government, as part of the Central African Forest Initiative; helped to structure a debt restructuring Blue Bond for $500 million, designed to generate $163 million for marine conservation; and spoke on behalf of Africa at UNFCCC COP26 in Glasgow.

I have authored / co-authored 120 scientific papers published in peer reviewed journals, written and / or edited 16 books and 30 book chapters and have 16,798 citations and an h-index of 62 on Google Scholar. I was awarded a CBE by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2010, for services to conservation in Central Africa and was made a ‘Chevalier' (2003) and then ‘Officier’ (2022) in Gabon’s National Order of Merit.